Oh I just remembered. There were animals in Eden therefore, according to Hebrew Scripture, animals would have souls.

@p-nullifidian I basically agree with you. Poor Paul though. He only wrote about 6 of the letters attributed to him. Most of the trouble with today's Christianity come from the other letters. The bible would be better if it came with disclaimers. It would really be helpful if the New Testament writers had attributed their allegories to the Old Testament stories they rewrote.

@Seminarian Romans is considered a Pauline epistle and is where much, if not most, of Paul's core theology is argued.

@p-nullifidian Yes, I do not have many issues with Romans. Considering, Paul probably attended a Greek Stoic school in Tarsus and therefore probably maintained some Stoic ideas i have to agree with most of what he says. Of course, that doesn't mean I agree with the traditional Christian interpretation.

29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31 Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.

 Sounds OK to me.
Oh as far as the anti-gay material, I believe that refers to the traditional Greek/Roman practice of older males taking teen boyfriends.  The Didache written later supports my claim.  

@Seminarian "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." Romans 5:19 (NIV)

The core theology of Paul which I found revolting is the notion (in opposition to Ezekiel 18:20) that the guilt of one may be passed on to his heirs and that this supposed guilt could, by some magical means, transferred to one individual, who then must die. Three immoral outrages of Christianity that I can never abide involve inherited guilt, its transfer to a sacrificial lamb, and that it required the debauching of a teenage virgin to produce a halfbreed god-man to be the sacrifice!

@p-nullifidian I don't blame you for not abiding that interpretation (which i know is the traditional interpretation). You could also read it as the disobedience of one man caused many to follow false teaching. Further, the correct teaching of one man caused many followers to be made righteous. I do realize that I am a heretic in the eyes of Fundy Christians, but given that I agree with you about Traditional Christianities moral outrages,. I am proud to be a heretic. By the way, I don't remember Paul mentioning a virgin birth. I'm pretty sure he didn't, because he never heard the story. I'm sure that story was added later to conform to a misinterpreted messianic prediction from the Hebrew Scriptures. I believe that the four gospels are nearly entirely allegorical and further the original Christians (Jews) would nave easily recognized them as such. I got that idea from Bishop John Shelby Spong. Finally, If you believe (as I do) that we are all spiritual beings temporarily inhabiting physical bodies then we are all half man/ half God, just like Jesus. Of course that would mean that our material bodies are always sacrificed eventually in order to eliminate our sin (seperation). Note: Sin was originally an archery term that described the distance from the center.

@Seminarian Ah, Bishop Spong, the heretic! Were I to have heard of him earlier, perhaps his '12 Points of Reform' would have acted as a cold splash of water on my face, instead of being 'too little, too late.' Imagine the doctrinaire believer being confronted with Spong's first point of reform: "Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found." I have seen no convincing evidence that demonstrates we are "spiritual beings temporarily inhabiting physical bodies."

@p-nullifidian No there is no scientific evidence, at least that I know of. Its just a choice to believe or not. If belief improves one's life then they should believe. If it doesn't then they shouldn't. My Seminary teaches that God is a Principle that underlies universal(or divine) laws. We take this idea and try to use it as a basis for belief. Then we use study and our imagination to expand this idea into practical use. I find that Humanism is a worthwhile area of study, for example, along with Quantum and Relativity theories etc.

wadr the Bible is not trying to be anything else, imo anyway

right? Evabody detests believers--even in the Bible--but evabody buys their interp of It too lol. Isnt "baptizing ppl in the river jordan" tantamount to sedition in a theocracy? Arent we aware that "Messiah, Savior, Son of God, King of kings, Lord of lords," these were all Caesar's titles? And Pharaoh's before them?

@bbyrd009 pharaohs, and other rulers, were thought of as actual gawds...learn some history? Like, "Divine Right of Kings"?

@AnneWimsey Well who’s denying that? The point was that those titles were appropriated?

@bbyrd009 ummm, appropriated from the Gilgamash Epic, maybe...predating Jewish religions by millenia

@AnneWimsey yeh, the abarim guy mentions that, pretty cool
[duckduckgo.com]
wow, a lot

and yeh i guess the whole mythology is cobbled together from everywhere else, sacrificial sons are nothing new, virgins, all retreads. it is literally in your face with it, the first (second?) five of the decalogue came from Hannibal, King of Babylon, and prolly earlier than that, etc

hannibal? no. yes? diff hannibal? Hammurabi, duh

I love you logic, solid as a rock.

priceless prolly stealin it
so,
No Son of Man may die for another's sins;
I came that you might have LIFE, more abundantly
You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are
respectively.

and evo is in There too bion
"The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible" SClemens
ps i wouldnt be telling believers any of this if you wanna sell them anything or anything think lol

I understand how evolution works, which I accept as fact. The reason I chose to use the term 'works against' is because evolutionary theory was the new idea which jarred the minds of most sincere Christians of the 19th century. And since Darwin, evidence solidifying his theory has come from emerging fields of paleontology, embryology, genetics and plate tectonics, to name but a few. My remarks are not directed at the died-in-the-wool evolution denier, rather toward the cafeteria Christian who picks and chooses what elements of his/her faith are treated as allegory or personification.

@p-nullifidian not a lot of those idiots here.

@Mofo1953 Consider yourself fortunate!

@p-nullifidian we all are.

Not only do you have to prove there is a god, you have to prove it is YOUR god out of the many that is claimed to exist.

Evolution is at least a partial answer. That is why it is a profound discovery, genuinely transcendental and very probably universal. Besides directly contradicting Abrahamic dogma, it is also more profound than anything in these religions.

@racocn8 I agree.

Determining 'right from wrong' is another can of worms. To most theists, our morality comes via divine command--we just couldn't figure it out for ourselves. Evolutionary biologists and anthropologists know better. Morality is founded upon two main pricinple behaviors: reciprocity and empathy, and rudimentary examples of which may be seen in other animals, including other primates.

@p-nullifidian Yes. To most Christians, the bible is supposed to be the ultimate source of showing us what is right and what is wrong; but it is all over the place. This god, that is supposed to be unchanging, is certainly not consistent.

Rather than seeing that the bible actually shows how views on right and wrong and morality changed over time, they twist their minds into a pretzel trying to explain things away, or they just ignore the bits that they don't like because it all HAD to come from their god--not from humans.

Yep and the rest of us don't bloody care because we know there is no logic to chistianity and you can't resolve the delusions of a christian through logic

You may be correct, and I respect your opinion, but I have a number of family members and loved ones who remain where I was, about 10 years ago. Perhaps I am engaging in a fool's errand, but I'd like to think that there are concepts and ideas worth discussing that will create the 'wake up call' I got. That, to be fair, is my motivation for this post.

@p-nullifidian I can go with that: never miss an opportunity to allow other people to think for themselves.

Cognitive dissonance !!

@Moravian Yep!

True? As in, correct, actual and verifiable? If something is true, it is factual. A 'true myth' is an oxymoron, like 'original copy' or 'definite uncertainty.'

Agreed! I'll keep Song of Solomon and maybe a few poetic lines from Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, but the rest is of no value. If there were any justice in Job, it would have been to expose and strip all power from the two guys who made the bet. But instead of a proper ending to the story--like what happened to the Duke brothers in Trading Places--the Devil and God get away with it, and Job gets a replacement family and is praised for being subjected to unheard of heartache without losing faith. What a crock of shit!

ha ok but don't be writing that in stone just yet iykwgfy k

There is no more evidence of reincarnation than of adam and the garden of eden.

@Theresa_N So I take it that you reject the life work of Ian Stevenson.

Even though you reject his studies, isn’t it still true that those studies constitute evidence? Even if you have made a detailed study of his work and have personally checked out the numerous cases and find them unconvincing, you must still admit that those studies fall into the category of evidence

If you have not personally checked the cases, interviewed witnesses, etc., then your assertion that there is no evidence is itself lacking in evidence

@WilliamFleming anecdotes are not science, never have been.....

@AnneWimsey The studies led by Dr. Stevenson are much much, more than anecdotes. Have you read any of the books? Have you checked out any of the cases.

Just because something doesn’t agree with your world view is no reason to close your eyes.

@WilliamFleming anecdotes are not science.

@AnneWimsey You said that already but you have not pointed out which of the case studies was based solely on anecdotal information. The team spent a huge amount of time and money verifying every case. Those that could not be verified were thrown out.

An open mind Is a great thing to have.

@WilliamFleming Maintaining an open mind is an essential attribute of skepticism. Without the ability to question, examine and re-examine, science is little more than a religion. It has been more than a decade since Dr. Stevenson's passing, but his hypothesies should easily be repeated by other scientists who might discover a previously unknown phenomenon. What new data and information has been collected in this area in the past 13 years? My mind remains open, but I seek further evidence and, most importantly, confirmation using the scientific method.

@p-nullifidian Active searching will reveal current research, or you could undertake your own research.

Just a cursory search gave me this:

[uvamagazine.org]

My role is not to persuade anyone—I don’t care if people believe or not, but for me it is very hard to dismiss Dr. Stevenson’s work out of hand. I suspect the dearth of research is because people do not want it to be true.